“Not quite that,” said he.  “Sit down and I’ll tell you about it.”  So he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do.  “Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy,” he said—­“and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about her brother—­apart from that, I’m purely selfish in the thing.  I’ve got to win her respect, as well as—­the rest.  I want her to respect me, and she has never quite done that.  I’m an idler.  So are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse.  I have not.  I’ve been an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working for my living.  I know how she has felt about all that.  Well, she shall feel it no longer.”

“You’re taking on a big order,” said the other man.

“The bigger the better,” said Ste. Marie.  “And I shall succeed in it or never see her again.  I’ve sworn that.”

The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervor, came there again, and Hartley saw it, and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim.  Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries, who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world—­a place of unknown terrors—­afire for the Great Adventure.  And this was one of their blood.

“I’m afraid you don’t realize,” he went on, “the difficulties you’ve got to face.  Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know.”

“A worse might nevertheless succeed,” said Ste. Marie.  And the other said: 

“Yes.  Oh yes.  And there’s always luck to be considered, of course.  You might stumble on some trace.”  He threw away his cigarette and lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke.  At last he said:  “I want to tell you something.  The reason why I want to tell it comes a little later.  A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham to marry me.”

Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy.  “Ah,” said he.  “I have sometimes thought—­wondered.  I have wondered if it went as far as that.  Of course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there nowadays.”

“Yes,” said Hartley, “it went as far as that, but no farther.  She—­well, she didn’t care for me—­not in that way.  So I stiffened my back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I’d hoped for was impossible.  And now comes the reason for telling you what I’ve told.  I want you to let me help you in what you’re going to do—­if you think you can, that is.  Remember, I—­cared for her, too.  I’d like to do something for her.  It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand—­do some of the work.  D’you think you could let me in?”